ABSTRACT
For centuries, peasant agriculture in Central America has been based on the slash and burn or roza system. Such a system can yield important social, economic and ecological benefits under conditions where the person to land ratio and the cash and consumer demands of the peasant household are low (Heckadon, 1982). It not only provided peasant families with their basic food requirements but also minimized risk, given that few or no costly modern inputs were required and indebtedness was restricted. By burning the dense covering vegetation of forest areas the peasant transformed this biomass into nutrient-rich ashes which fertilized crops. The roza system, however, depended on the possibility of leaving land fallow for periods of 10, 20 or more years as it was impossible to continue production on the same plot under conditions of declining fertility and prolific weed growth. The natural regeneration of forest served to increase the fertility of soils, improve their structure, protect them from erosion and reduce the incidence of weeds (CIERA, 1984:83–7; Heckadon, 1984:218).
